Run Committed

The Wave

A week ago Sunday I went for my scheduled long run. According to Mr. Pfitzinger, I was supposed to run 16 miles, 10 of which were supposed to be at marathon pace.

I know. So what, right?

It was cold and we had just come out the back side of a very large snow storm. The roads were (still are) treacherous, the sidewalks non-existent. I contemplated doing this run on the treadmill, but finally decided to drive to a part of the Boston Marathon course that I knew would be relatively clear. The problem with this stretch of course is that it is only about 6 miles long.

I powered through the first five miles, my mind more or less numbed by the cold. However, as I approached the end of the stretch, my legs tiring, I realized that I still had over 10 miles to run. My heart sank, my will ebbed. Very quickly my mind went from somewhat blank to a swirl of self-doubt. Suddenly the lack of sleep from the night before felt very real; my legs were tired, my lungs were tired, my brain was tired. As I rapidly approached the first of the Newton Hills section of the Boston Marathon course, I came very close to stopping.

This section happens to be at Mile 17 of the marathon. I remembered that just as I was about to drop my pace to a walk up the hill. I remembered watching dozens of runners slow to a walk last April right at this point and I thought to myself, “If I couldn’t do it after 6 or 7 miles, no matter how tired I am, how the Hell am I going to do it on race day after 17 miles?”

I growled and forced myself into a quicker pace.

The legs struggled.

The lungs burned.

I made it to the top of the hill and cracked a small smile. As I hit the next hill, my GPS chirped that I had run the last mile 12 seconds faster than the previous one.

I smiled.

Energy flowed back into my legs and lungs. As I crested Heartbreak Hill for the second of what would be three times that day, I realized that my second 6 miles had been faster than my first.

Running, and life for that matter, is full of waves. The key is to ride the crests as long as you can and power through the troughs to get to that next wave.

Physical pain is pretty easy to gauge. You know if something is physically wrong with your body and it’s time to quit. It’s the mental part of running that is hard. Judging what you have left in the tank, mentally, is never an easy task. But this I know: if you don’t push past what is comfortable, if you don’t embrace the pain, the burn, you won’t grow, you won’t find out whether you can or cannot.

6 Responses

I had a virus last week that has now swept through the house, and as I lay in bed this morning contemplating whether I will hit the gym this morning, I read this post. Guess where I am heading, the gym. Still not 100%, but I can make the effort to do a workout, maybe a little easy one, but still I will go. Thank-you for inspiring ME:)

You’re really on a roll with your writing, Luau. Between the “What if” post and this one, you’ve really got me thinking and motivated.

I am helping a friend train for a 5K. We have run the course a couple of times and there is a hill at around the 2.6 mile mark. We always talk about not letting that hill define the run, knowing it’s there, saving energy, etc. I sent her this post to help add to her “arsenal.”

It’s also true (this “hill” idea) in other areas of our lives, as you pointed out. I have been having a bit of that going on with my writing – last night when my original “plan” fell through (I was doing a giveaway and the vendor hadn’t gotten back to me on the draft), I thought “maybe I should skip this Sunday – it’ll take too much brain power to write something late on a Sunday.” I ended up using a story that I had written almost a year ago but not shared with my blogging community – I guess that’s a sort of “reserve” in itself – having something as a backup post!

You know? I really could’ve used reading this before my race yesterday! As I was running up Warner Hill (1.5 miles of seemingly endless climbing) in sub-zero windchill wearing frozen solid fleece, all I had to hold onto was “But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.” The course took us by the Robert Frost Farm, and in my delirium it’s all I could come up with…

In life, in training for a marathon, in fund raising we all have our walls but I love the image of a wave because a wave is something you get through or you can surf on but a wall is something you have to push through. My Zen self likes the image of harmony and working through a barrier rather than pushing through. Last week I had a very intense training week doing things I had not done before (vinyasa yoga for one) and running Hearbreak in the cold which I hadn’t done in two years. I allowed my body to rest for two days in a row – something I do not ordinarily do. And now I am ready to hit the ground running so to speak. So it’s often a delicate balance between pushing through and using mental toughness and listening to when our bodies really need us to stop and recover. Ahhh the journey not the destination.
Thanks Luau – you rock! You know what? We all do!

The biggest part of my training right now is all mental. My Tempo runs are threshold that I am pushing harder and harder on – 2km warm up and then each km (not minutes) at my threshold pace. It hurts … a lot but being able to go faster/farther for me is thrilling.
…our coach has us saying that there are times we have to suffer in a workout. So suffer and deal with it.
I agree.